ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. –Army sustainment is integral to the nation’s defense to ensure there is no lapse in force readiness. It is therefore essential to hear firsthand from the individuals using the valuable equipment: the Soldiers.
Joseph Cattelona, Colleen Holloway, Jerry Wright, and Jennifer Reed of the Integrated Logistics Support Center’s (ILSC) Command, Control, and Communications – Tactical (C3T) directorate illustrated this idea perfectly with their recent visit to Soldiers in the field.
The team traveled Sept. 28-29, 2021, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to discuss with Soldiers the essential measures and processes necessary to sustain equipment in the field. The two-day sustainment meeting was conducted for a multifaceted approach addressing the future sustainment of both legacy and modernized systems, including the de-fielding of unused systems, pooling systems for contingency deployment, and strategically determining replacement parts for obsolete items.
Obsolescence and field capability significantly impact the ability to sustain the fleet at Fort Bragg, making it crucial to bring forward sustainment concerns and user perspectives in order to identify issues and possible courses of action to sustain legacy and modernized equipment.
The single most important action is to touch base with Soldiers in the field frequently to advocate for them properly. The short term benefits of the visit are “increased customer service, user expanded system knowledge, proactive engagement on the sustainment of systems, keeping current on updates to fielding/defielding, current trends or concerns impacting readiness for critical C5ISR systems,” said Colleen Holloway, C3T chief, Tactical Network Division.
By engaging with the user community, they are able to ascertain what is working well and what needs attention. This helps to increase readiness and awareness for simple fixes, such as putting appropriate labels on cables that provide specific and valuable directions on how to use equipment. Furthermore, the team emphasized the importance of turning in equipment for maintenance. An explanation of the Army Working Capital Fund (AWCF) supply system emphasized how interdependent they are as Weapon System support, especially considering the effects on depot maintenance.
The Soldiers at Fort Bragg were eager to provide feedback to the C3T team, which helped the ILSC representatives identify which systems were not being used properly and how replacement systems are currently functioning. This also gave the Soldiers a forum to voice initiatives for future system improvements. Additionally, the technical manuals Soldiers are using in the field are not up to date and sustainment gaps have developed. Soldier feedback also included confirmation of unused systems, such as Command Post Platforms (CPPs) and High Capacity Line of Sight (HCLOS) radio systems (TRC-190s), which allows ILSC the opportunity to plan how to move forward with sustainment and maintenance.
“Soldiers provided feedback on suggestions that would increase their readiness through increased supportability at Regional Support Centers (RSCs) for non-program of record radios, development of field level maintenance plans for additional C5ISR systems, increased training gaps after new equipment training and new equipment fielding (NET/NEF), and the need for up-to-date technical manuals,” said Holloway.
Hearing the concerns and updates from Soldiers directly aids in identifying common usage factors and trends that greatly influence the C5ISR systems managed by the Weapons System Directorate, C3T. Subsequently, this information allows the team to create proactive measures they can use to influence future system sustainment plans that are still in the acquisition phase or the Program Executive Offices can modernize to reduce the logistics tail and costs before entering the sustainment phase of the lifecycle.
The visit’s findings did not come as a surprise. Instead, they confirmed C3T’s suspicion that there were existing maintenance and training gaps. The visit also emphasized technical manuals as the first line of supportability for maintaining systems in the field, further demonstrating that these manuals need to be updated frequently with users’ notes. Additionally, Soldiers need appropriate training on current and new systems for them to be able to take on more field-level maintenance of those systems.
The ultimate long term goal is to increase readiness rates and reduce sustainment costs. The data the C3T team collected will support the decrease or increase of the budget and realign funds to other programs as needed. The initial Basis of Issue Plans for some systems will be reviewed to reduce the overall fleet size and harvest the net reduction for parts to increase supply availability to maintain the reduced fleets.
This trip is the first of many visits by C3T personnel to assess system usage, engage in Soldier discussions, and realign maintenance concepts. Additionally, the team traveled to Fort Drum, New York, on November 16-17 of 21 and will go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, next in January 2022.
The ILSC sees the importance of interfacing with the Soldiers more and intends to make this practice become part of their quarterly routine by visiting different CORPs, which are the highest level of command that can provide operational direction for actual combat, for regular Army (COMPO 1) feedback and connectivity.
The Intergrated Logistics Support Center is a major subordinate of the U. S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, and is heaquartered on the C5ISR campus of Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. As the Army’s premier logistics organization for C5ISR life cycle support, ILSC ensures that Soldiers are equipped and ready to execute missions in support of Army priorities and combatant commanders’ requirements.
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